Harry Clifton

Red Earth Sequence

1. The Mouth of the Yangtze
All that flying time at body heat —
And now at last descent... The spirit-worlds
Of Sichuan, Tibet, have drained away
To shipping lanes and Japanese defeat,
Drowned Studebakers, yesterday’s bar-girls,
Gold teeth gone, who walked the Shanghai streets
Alive in Nineteen Forty Five, to the flash
Five hundred miles away — Hiroshima
Or the end of the world… If time, eternity
Ever meet, tomorrow or today,
My criminal essence and my need to pray
Will break apart on impact, in the South China Sea,
Or make it through, on a wing and a prayer
To a deathless landing. No-one will meet me there.
2. The Life on Zhentong Street
Smell it, the osmanthus. Heavy, sweet,
The essence of China, somebody once said.
For days I hang out here, on Zhentong Street,
Making a world, recovering, lightheaded
After time-zones. Children, break my heart
For childlessness. Street-women, sprawl at ease
On your public sofa. Life has beaten art,
The innocence and the sleaze.
The vulcanizer’s spark, the cobbler’s awl
Monopolize the empire, great in small.
Laughter claps a hand to its own mouth
In pure embarrassment at the power of mood.
Past the point of beauty, short of death,
Never does plain water taste so good.
3. Autumn in Chengdu
At the slightest rain, a flowering of umbrellas
Fourteen storeys down. The human sea,
The “ocean of suffering,” or so they tell me —
Deaths, rebirths… How many days now, all alone
At the heart of reality, in the white noise
Of a jammed radio, the fuzz on the internet,
Do I cut myself off, the better to atone
For ever living? It is not time yet
For the leaves that never fall, on the trees of Chengdu —
But the cripples and the hydrocephalic boys
At the Buddhist gates, the lama’s cry
On the loudspeaker, powerfully coming through
The smog of appetite, are reaching me
Even now, and teaching me to die.
4. At the White Night Café
A poet of the Meo tribe, smoking weed,
Ignores me, ostentatiously. Ms Zhai
With a hand-held camera, looks herself in the eye.
“It is time, now, for our honored guest to read”
Professor Chan sits down. I see John Wong
Stealing, surreptitiously, anything he is able,
From the uncleared plates on the revolving table.
Tan translates. A travesty, all wrong —
But who will care? The smoke and mirrors, drinks,
The zither-pluckings ancient as Du Fu,
The spot-lit stage, projectionist on cue,
Inspired misunderstandings, age to age,
Are crowding in on me, as the stone page
Turns, I clear my throat, and darkness blinks.
5. Red Earth
Huge as China, tiny as a door
To a higher incarnation…No-one there
To meet me, no-one to say goodbye.
Such is the infinite courteousness, I could die
On the wrong side of language. Where I go
There is only silence. Everywhere, crowded floors
Of airports, Himalayan air
In the distance, or the nearness of gingko trees —
Mongolian space, the nomad’s empty stare
In total externality. Two currencies,
Origin, destination, burn a hole
In my pocket, whatever each is worth.
Meanwhile, the body in transit. And the soul
Eternally foreign, vaster than red earth.